Downtime is Fun Time
by Red Witch
Summary: Just another moment in the lives of the Galaxy Rangers when they take another normal break.


**The disclaimer saying I don't own any Galaxy Rangers characters has run off somewhere. Don't know where. Snowbird is mine but she just does what she wants to do so it's not important. Just a mad idea in my mad mind. Takes place during my fic 'Sins of the Father'. **

**Downtime is Fun Time**

Zachery Foxx had just gotten some food from the commissary and was looking around for a place to sit at and eat. He saw Snowbird, one of the formerly missing Supertroopers turned bounty hunters eating at a table by herself. He decided to take this opportunity to talk and get to know one of Goose's 'relatives' better.

"Hello, Snowbird," Zach smiled. "Mind if I join you?"

"Not really, this is your base after all," Snowbird nodded as Zach sat next to her.

"So how are you liking BETA Mountain?" Zach asked.

"It's…interesting," Snowbird admitted as she picked at her lunch. "I must admit I never thought I'd be staying at a human military base outside a cell."

"A lot of things have changed on Earth," Zach said.

"Not everything. Many of the people here are still wary of me and my sisters. But you seem completely at ease," The white haired female Supertrooper noticed.

"I guess that's because I'm so used to Supertroopers now," Zach shrugged. "I've been around Goose for years. Then came Darkstar, Stingray and the others. I mean you're all still people."

"More or less," Snowbird nodded. "It's just not that many humans have such an…informed opinion on us. Technically we still are very dangerous."

"So am I. But you and some of the other ones in your group don't seem as…" Zach struggled to find the right word.

"Aggressive? That's because we're Betas. We have a very different mindset than Alphas like Shane and Spitfire," Snowbird explained. "Oh we can fight just as well as they can. It's just that we're more…calculating. We don't go looking for fights because we know sooner or later they'll come to us."

"I remember Goose telling me something about the two different types of Supertroopers. Almost all of Wolf Den was made up of Alphas and your base mostly produced Betas," Zach said.

"Ironically it was that lack of aggression that condemned the rest of us to either death or a fate in the Cryocrypt," Snowbird shrugged. "Or wherever else Walsh was going to send us. They only took the surviving Alphas from our base except for Spitfire. And that was only because for some reason they were too impatient to let her leg heal. The plan was to have both an integrated group of Alphas and Betas to make a more balanced team. But for some reason our creators changed their minds at the last minute and just went with Alphas."

"I know why," Zach growled. "The Board of Leaders got greedy. They wanted ruthless soldiers to kill aliens and steal their technology for them. Walsh said it was for scenarios like the Queen of the Crown."

"But you figured out that was a lie," Snowbird gave him a curious look.

"Yeah," Zach sighed. "I knew our leaders were corrupt and had secrets. But until that whole Black Rose mess and the Civil War I had no idea how bad it was. Unfortunately so does the League now."

"Ah **now** I understand why Supertroopers were pardoned so quickly after the war," Snowbird nodded.

"The League has very dim views about slavery," Zach remarked. "Which quite frankly that's what the whole damn Supertrooper Project was."

"**Projects,**" Snowbird corrected. "But yes. Speaking as a survivor of the camps it wasn't a picnic. But it was all we knew. And all we were programmed to be. But things changed. In my case and the case of my sisters as you would call them, for the better."

"GIVE ME MY PUDDING!"

"Oh no…" Zach groaned. "Not again!"

"This is my pudding and you can't have it!" Q-Ball was screaming at a robot who was trying to take his pudding.

"Pudding…Need pudding…" The unknown robot kept sputtering.

"I swear if you don't give me my pudding you bucket of bolts I will really disassemble you this time!" Q-Ball yelled.

"Pudding! Need pudding! Must have pudding!" The robot kept fighting.

"YOU DON'T NEED PUDDING! YOU'RE A **ROBOT** FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!" Q-Ball screamed. Soon he and the robot were throwing pudding at each other. "YOU WANT PUDDING SO BAD YOU CAN TAKE IT!"

"They're at it again," Doc remarked as he and Shane walked up to Zach and Snowbird with their trays.

"So who's turn is it this time?" Shane asked.

"Not me," Zach grunted. "I did it last time and it took a week to get the stains out of my uniform."

"Look, Charles and Allen are going to do something about it," Shane remarked.

"And by do something I infer by your tone they will make it **worse?**" Snowbird asked.

BOOOOOOOOOM!

"Oh yeah," Shane snorted. "And people call **me** trigger happy."

"They're gonna be cleaning pudding off the floor for days," Doc laughed.

"Doc can I ask you something?" Zach asked.

"Go ahead, mon Capitan," Doc grinned.

"You were never really an outlaw hacker were you?" Zack asked.

"Where did **that **come from?" Doc blinked.

"It's just…I was thinking of when I was first introduced to you and the other Rangers. Before we met Walsh briefed me about you. How you were some kind of troublesome hacker who got his kicks selling black market information."

"Uh huh," Doc nodded. "And you know for a fact that I was deliberately placed in your group by Walsh and the Board of Leaders to watch over you and shut down your implants if you…Well went rogue for lack of a better term."

"How did he know that?" Snowbird asked.

"He told us," Shane scoffed.

"So you were never a hacker selling black market information forced to make a deal with Beta?" Zach asked.

"Yes and no," Doc said. "Depends on how you look at it. Yes, I did sell black market information but only because that was my cover. Some of the information I sold to certain individuals was a bit…biased. Made things easier for some of our other operatives in the field."

"So you were…?" Zach raised an eyebrow.

"A spy? Yes. Working secret black ops," Doc smiled. "I mean I did go to Miss Abercrombie's Charm School."

"Which we now know is a government run school for spies, hackers and assassins," Zach groaned. "Some days I can't get over that."

"Why? If you think about it logically it makes sense," Snowbird blinked. "Doc was the perfect control agent for your group."

"How do you figure that?" Zach asked.

"Zachery, I'm a Supertrooper, Niko is a psychic and you are a bionic man who has an itchy trigger figure and was obsessed with getting his wife back," Shane looked at him. "Doc on the other hand was just the guy with the computer skills."

"Computer skills to shut down your implants and incapacitate you," Snowbird nodded. "Ingenious."

"I know," Doc nodded. "You should have heard the briefing Walsh gave me on you guys."

"I can imagine," Shane smirked.

"What did he say about me?" Zach blinked.

"His exact words or a polite euphemism?" Doc remarked.

"That bad?" Shane raised an eyebrow.

"The way he talked he made the Captain sound more unstable than **you**, Gooseman," Doc confessed.

"Ouch, that's bad," Shane frowned. "I mean that really hurts my image!"

"Thanks a lot!" Zach groaned.

"So you confessed when Goose told you his suspicions?" Snowbird asked casually.

"No, I just went out and told them," Doc said.

"Why?" Snowbird was stunned.

"Because the Board of Leaders never figured out one thing, that despite my duplicitous nature I'm still a halfway decent human being," Doc said. "I don't like killing. I don't like hurting innocent people and I actually came to like my team mates. I just wanted to warn them what they were getting into."

"Well Niko and I already knew that," Shane shrugged. "But both of us had good hunches that Doc wouldn't betray us. Well that was more Niko's psychic intuition."

"So that left **me** being the only one in the dark?" Zach moaned. "Of course I was. And to think I was going to be a simple security officer on Kirwin to get **away** from all this!"

"Speaking of getting away with something…" Doc winced as he looked over Zach's shoulder. "Uh we have incoming…"

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Bubblehead flew by with something in his feet.

"COME BACK WITH MY BRA YOU MANIAC!" Niko ran after Bubblehead. "GOOSE! YOUR STUPID BIRD HAS DONE IT AGAIN!"

"COME BACK HERE BIRD!" Shane chased after Bubblehead. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT GOING THROUGH NIKO'S STUFF!"

"IT'S FUN!" Bubblehead chirped.

"YEOWWWW! NIKO I DIDN'T SAY THAT!" Shane screamed in pain. "YOU ARE DEAD BIRD! DEAD!"

"Walsh really thought I was more unstable than **Goose?**" Zach turned to Doc.

"He used the words, 'emotional breakdown' and 'tightly wound' a lot," Doc shrugged. "As well as 'big stick up his…' I think you can guess what the **other** words surrounding them are."

"Wonderful," Zach growled.

"Nope that wasn't one of them," Doc said cheerfully. Zach glared at him.

"Zachery what did you mean by 'getting away from all this'?" Snowbird asked. "You were supposed to be on Kirwin?"

"Yeah before the whole mess with the Queen of the Crown I was in the process of being assigned to take over security at the human/Kiwi colony on Kirwin," Zach admitted. "I was actually looking forward to being just a small town sheriff and spend more time with my family. But that didn't exactly pan out like I thought it would."

"Why did you want to leave BETA if you don't mind me asking?" Snowbird asked.

"I felt like it had very little to offer me at the time," Zach said. "See this was before we had been contacted or heard of the Crown Empire in any major way. We knew the League planets had once been part of an empire but broke away. And it had been over ten years since Earth was attacked by any rogue alien invader. Still paranoia was high. And there was a lot of other rangers who were more motivated by personal gain rather than serving the public."

"Back in the good ol' days of the greed and corruption of the Board of Leaders," Doc quipped.

"I didn't want any part of the payoffs and plotting to get ahead. I wanted a challenge in life and to spend more time with my family," Zach said.

"Well you got the challenge part right," Doc said. "Don't feel bad Zachery. If none of this ever happened you would never have met me or Niko or Goose…"

CRASH!

"MY MAYONAISE!" Someone yelled.

"YOU STUPID SACK OF MICROCHIPS!" Shane yelled. "NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

"Or Bubblehead…" Doc went on.

"EAT PUDDING YOU PINHEAD!" Ranger Charles was heard screaming. A bowl of pudding sailed across the room.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

"GOOSE DID YOU HAVE TO SHOOT THE PUDDING?" Niko shouted.

"Sorry I was aiming for Bubblehead!" Shane replied.

"There's pudding everywhere!" Niko shouted.

"Even on your bra!" Bubblehead chirped.

"BIRD! YOU STUPID…OWW! NIKO STOP HITTING ME! OWW! OWWW!" Shane screamed in agony.

"COME BACK HERE WITH MY PUDDING! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Q-Ball chased the robot with a blaster.

"Is it always this…Interesting around here?" Snowbird raised an eyebrow.

"This is nothing," Doc quipped. "Wait until you see what happens on the weekends. That's when things really get crazy."


End file.
